Why did the RAF put so many resources into the Hurricane?

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jetcal1 said:
End of life buys are a common to ensure stocks are adequate.
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Not so much in this case, most were acquired through Lend Lease, certainly the RNZAF examples were. The problem was that no one had any real certainty of when the war might come to a satisfactory conclusion, nor when exactly the P-40 might be replaced; it was still of considerable use until the war's end in the island hopping campaigns in the Pacific. As for replacing it, the RNZAF bought Corsairs and Mustangs, the former were used almost exclusively for attack and the latter not arriving until the very end of the war, so the P-40 soldiered on until the end of the war. The RAAF was building Mustangs under licence, but throughout the war until its end, the P-40 remained its most numerous and important fighter.
 
Do mean the RAAF did not draw spares via Lend-Lease or other US stocks?
 
jetcal1 said:
Do you mean the RAAF did not draw spares via Lend-Lease or other US stocks?
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Probably did, but who would be responsible for making a decision to end P-40 production when it was still very much in use? Spares supply is only as good as the supply chain and bearing in mind the remote locations that these aircraft were operating. My point is that bringing the production line to an end too soon would have adversely affected aircraft and spares supply, particularly since there was no real timeline as to when the war was going to end.
 

Nuuumannn,

You have a good point and I don't have a satisfactory answer. However based on the number of P40s I have seen in pictures to be cut up for scrap at the end of the war there appears to have been plenty of spare aircraft to canabalize parts from.

Also find it hard to believe that there was no thought given to spare parts due to how many were still in operational use.

Cheers,
Biff
 
The initial April 27th 1939 contract for P-40s called for 560 airframes, 524 as complete aircraft and 36 as spare parts. Also included was one "skeleton" aircraft at over $3,000 less than the normal aircraft. The contract also covered manuals, hand books and parts catalogs.

I would imagine that similar provisions were made in later contracts or that contracts were placed for spare parts. trying to breakdown existing airframes for spare parts is grossly inefficient.
If the initial contract paid attention to the provision of spares and maintenance I doubt that this aspect of things faded away after the US got in the war.
 
BiffF15 said:
have seen in pictures to be cut up for scrap at the end of the war there appears to have been plenty of spare aircraft to canabalize parts from.
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Yup, but those images show aircraft that might have also returned from the frontline and were up for disposal at the end of the war as being surplus to requirements, not just aircraft that were 'spare' during the war, as it were. As I said, no one had any real timeline as to when the war was going to end.

Shortround6 said:
trying to breakdown existing airframes for spare parts is grossly inefficient.
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Yes, but it happened/happens more often than maintenance operators were/are prepared to admit. Also, it's not just breaking down airframes, but also to rob bits from aircraft either undergoing maintenance or waiting for the arrival of parts to bring them back to flight worthy status. At work, we will ground aircraft if we don't have parts as a last resort, but it happens. If we have an aircraft on the ground for unrelated maintenance, if we need to rob a part to get an aircraft we are maintaining on the line back serviceable before the end of the night, we will take it from that aircraft and requisition a new part through stores for the one we robbed. We also take from heavy maintenance aircraft as well. The paperwork for all this is monstrous, but thankfully I don't have anything to do with this side of it! I bet every aircraft maintenance organisation does this, including the armed forces.
 

I don't think they brought to many fighters back to the US from front line units. I was referencing Kingman AZ in particular as I seem to remember a shot of acres of P40s minus engines sitting on their collective noses.

A bit off assumptions in that statement.

Cheers,
Biff
 
BiffF15 said:
I don't think they brought to many fighters back to the US from front line units.
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That I can't say, but you can guarantee that if the war was to continue, they certainly wouldn't have been considered 'spare'. That's no mere assumption; they would have impressed them into service, d'you really think they had 'spare' aircraft just sitting round? They would have been allocated to training units or to countries operating them - I don't understand why that's an assumption at all. All those aircraft being scrapped indicate is that the war ended before they had been allocated.
 
Theres some great info being posted. I guess my idea that the brits should have cutback the Hurricane production that early in the war was a bit off. But I still maintain that it was a dated aircraft going into 1943, and should still have had its production run ended for more Spitfires or other aircraft types.

As for an aircraft like the P40 being terminated earlier, just because an aircraft is not being assembled, spare parts can still be manufactured. So to say that the parts pipeline would suddenly stop is not accurate.
 
syscom3 said:
But I still maintain that it was a dated aircraft going into 1943, and should still have had its production run ended for more Spitfires or other aircraft types.
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Yeah, coulda... but d'you think Hawker, a supplier of fighters to the RAF/RFC/RNAS since the Great War (as Sopwith) would want to build a direct competitor's aircraft, particularly when it had its own in the Tempest (and Fury) in production? Not likely.

So to say that the parts pipeline would suddenly stop is not accurate.
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Show me where I said it would suddenly stop.

There are numerous factors to take into consideration. In hindsight we can say P-40 production should'a been stopped, but what impact would that have had on Allies still using it? And again, it depends on when those who suggested it to have been stopped actually think it should have been stopped. If it was stopped with the P-51 in service in '42 - 43 perhaps? Still lots of P-40s in the Pacific and North Africa and in hindsight the war went on for another two years. That would have affected the supply chain.

This whole argument is based on presumption without any established facts, from my point of view and from yours and everyone else's. We don't know what exactly would have happened because there are so many variables, but suffice to say, it might not have made the best of sense to stop production of the P-40 before the date it was stopped because, a. no one knew when the war was going to end, and b. there were allies to the USA that were using it until the very end of the war.

Same with the Hurricane - I would'a also thought someone would have suggested stopping production of the Bristol Blenheim, which was declared obsolescent well before the Hurricane, yet production went on for long after suitable replacements were being built even by the parent company in the Beaufighter. But again, in the Hurricane's case, the Typhoon didn't pan out and a work force had to be kept busy and even in 1942 - 43, the Hurricane was still in useful employ, despite being obsolescent. As for the Blenheim, with aircraft like the Mosquito and Beaufighter available, and Boston, Mitchell and Marauder from the USA... head scratching... Maybe something to do with numbers, perhaps?
 
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Just to reinforce my view that it might have been a mistake to prematurely end P-40 production because of the impact this might have had on Allies using the type, the following from Aircraft of the RAF since 1918 by Owen Thetford (Putnam, 1988 reprint);

"Over 3,000 Kittyhawks were delivered to the Commonwealth air forces, including 1,500 Mk.1As, 616 Mk.IIIs and 586 Mk.IVs. The remaining Desert Air Force Kittyhawks in Italy were finally superceded by Mustangs when No.250 [Sqn] re-equipped in August 1945."

There are also similarities behind the reasons why the P-40 and Hurricane were kept in production despite there being better alternatives late in the war; the P-40 was intended on being replaced by the Curtiss P-46, which was to be an advanced fighter that could match European fighters in performance, but it fell short and was cancelled owing to it offering no significant improvement over the P-40. The British Purchasing Commission ordered the P-46 as a P-40 replacement, but cancelled its order.

Subsequently, Curtiss was then investing its effort into the XP-53, which never flew, but provided impetus for the following XP-60 programme, which was to be powered by the Merlin 28 licence built by Packard. After a number of powerplant changes and so forth, and the passing of a number of years, the P-60 got nowhere because it couldn't provide sufficient performance improvement over contemporary types then in service, after which Curtiss then manufactured P-47s (!) at Buffalo, NY (although these were used for training in the USA only) - by which time the P-40 was well entrenched in the war, in North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Far East and the Pacific in Australian, British, New Zealand, South African and US hands.
 
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Kevin J said:
The Spitfire is technically superior to the Hurricane, but is that technical superiority needed in all theatres of war, or even within any theatre itself. The Hurricane was a better bomber interceptor
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This is quite correct, the Hurricane had several advantages over the Spit I in this regard

1 The hurricane was a far better gun platform. It was more stable, didn't shake when the guns were fired, had a better view forward over the sloped nose
2 The Hurricane I was better armoured than the Spit 1, giving the pilot better protection from return fire
3 Better concentration of fire power, the Hurricanes 8 x .303s were in two tight groups of 4 guns, unlike the Spit whose guns were spread over the wing
4 Bigger ammo load 332 rpg for the Hurricane, 300 rpg for the Spit 1
5 Longer range 505 miles for the Hurricane, 395 for the Spit 1
6 The Hurricane had far better high speed handling, especially in aileron control and time to bank

Other non performance advantages the Hurricane had were its airframe was more resistant to battle damage and easier to repair and cannibalize if necessary, also the Hurricane was easier to fly, and land, at a time when the training time for RAF fighter pilots was at a very low ebb.
 
slaterat said:
This is quite correct, the Hurricane had several advantages over the Spit I in this regard
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I think most of what is written about the Hurricane's superiority over the Spitfire as a gun platform is academic. Statistically I doubt there was much of a difference between what a Hurricane or Spitfire would do to a Heinkel if placed 200 yards astern.

Now there's the rub ... placing yourself 200 yards behind an enemy bomber. And the Spitfire was absolutely better at that.

EDIT: I was also under the impression that the Hurricane and Spitfire had very similar frontal armour schemes during the Battle of Britain. If anything, the Hurricane's wing tanks would make it more vulnerable than the Spitfire.
 

Well, the Spitfire would have been a better bullet magnet and fire hazard, in that it had 85 Imp gals of fuel in front of the pilot as opposed to the 29 Imp gal reserve tank fuel of the Hurricane.
 
A couple of items that enter in to aircraft design are Poly-Ticks and the Not-Invented-Here syndrome. Hurricane was an adventure into the new monoplane fighters and an amazingly quick progression of advances came along quickly, including two speed then constant speed propellers. The "eight gun" fighter was considered a big improvement. Research and development facilities were much more frugal then and many issues such as hight speed aerodynamics only dimly explored. Modifications of drawings, needed for construction was a very time consuming process. Shortage of drafting personnel was even felt strongly in the US, especially in ship design. In the event shipyard personnel often got on with the task with tape measures, torches and lots of arm waving.

Once approved for production, especially with a "war on" three fighters today are better than one better one on the drawing board. My understanding was that the Air ministry had a bias against radials in fighters. Perhaps the advent of the FW190 grudgingly modified this point of view.

As to stand testing, P&W pulled some high HP stunts out of the R2800. However cooling, cylinders, inter coolers and oil on a test stand can take care of a lot of issues that would make short work of an Areo engine actually installed in a tactical aircraft.

The Hurri was good enough, in the right place at the right time.
 
Kevin J said:
Well, the Spitfire would have been a better bullet magnet and fire hazard, in that it had 85 Imp gals of fuel in front of the pilot as opposed to the 29 Imp gal reserve tank fuel of the Hurricane.
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The Hurricane was a much worse fire hazard than a Spitfire, it had more tanks to hit not all of which could be made self sealing. The statistics of losses in the BoB were all against the Hurricane.
 

The Brits did build radial engine prototype fighters pre-WW2, the Vickers Venom, the Gloster F.5/34 and the Bristol Type 146, supposedly for colonial use, none of them measured up in performance to either the Hurricane or Spitfire. Later we ordered the Brewster Buffalo for use in the Far East and planned Curtiss Mohawk productionin India, production was stopped after 5 had been built and we had also taken over Mohawk IV (174) deliveries intended for the French and Mohawks I, II & III fighters flown to England after the French Armistice.
 
pbehn said:
The Hurricane was a much worse fire hazard than a Spitfire, it had more tanks to hit not all of which could be made self sealing. The statistics of losses in the BoB were all against the Hurricane.
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The reserve fuel tank behind the engine was initially not protected. Also remember that the Spitfire was assigned to intercepting fighters and Hurricanes to the bombers, the intention always being to pair a squadron of fighters for interception, that bombers unlike fighters can fire back at the intercepting fighter.
 
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